As most of you know, it’s been a rough couple of months around my house (if you’re lost, you can catch up here and here).  So I decided that this Halloween, I would focus more on happy, fun and colorful- definitely not black and death.  Old books make me happy, and I have a bunch of them, so that’s part of why I went with the #booksandbirds theme.   Since I’ve already shared that, I thought I might go ahead and show a few more decoration/party details as well!

From now until Halloween, I’m going to share the details of my own little Halloween get-together ( really, I mean LITTLE – just a tiny party of just a few close gal pals this year).  Even with a small crowd, I can’t help but put a little effort in the details – that’s all the fun for me!  So in this post I’ve decided to do a “step-by-step” of my table centerpiece.  {Stay tuned over the next week and a half for other fun party ideas and recipes if you’re interested.}

DSC_0697sm

1.  With a blank table as my slate, I layered two tablecloths.  First a black one, then a vintage “lace”  one.

DSC_0698sm

2.  Then I gathered a few books (pretty much my entire Zane Grey collection that I got at an estate sale – it’s been “filler” in my favorite hallway for awhile, so I knew I could use them and not disrupt my general “book order”.)  I also collect old glass milk jars, so I thought those might be great for adding flowers (and color) to the centerpiece.  I used a few I had on hand as place-fillers here.

DSC_0702smDSC_0723sm3.  Next, I added a few crows, candle holders that I got at an estate sale ($5 for the set!) and white candles.

DSC_0805sm4.  Finally, I wrapped a few cobwebs (and plastic spiders) around the entire display.  I also added some flowers to the milk jars in a loose arrangement.  For these I used mostly yellow blooms, with some textural greens and “odd stems” (such as Safflower and Billy Balls) which I got from my friend Pam at Box of Rain.

DSC_0810sm

DSC_0816sm

DSC_0829sm

DSC_0833sm

DSC_0838smI love how the whole thing turned out, and it was pretty easy to do (bonus)!  Do you spy the place card books I used?  A post with details on that is coming up soon!